SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for ErnestTBass
She Was Fired After Raising Questions About a DNA Test. Now She's Getting $1 Million.
Officials from the chief medical examiner's office in New York City were furious when they heard that Marina Stajic, one of their longest-serving laboratory directors, had openly questioned whether they had sufficiently verified the reliability of a novel form of DNA testing being used in criminal cases.
Ms. Stajic was concerned that incorrect use of the DNA testing technique could lead to wrongful convictions, she said. But her bosses took her questioning in a different light.
"Hold me down," Dr. Barbara Sampson, the city's medical examiner, wrote in an internal email to a colleague in 2014, when she found out that Ms. Stajic had voted on a state panel to compel the office to release a study proving the technique's validity. "She sucks," a lawyer for the office wrote about Ms. Stajic, in another internal email.
Ms. Stajic, who was fired from the medical examiner's office about six months later, sued in 2016, claiming she was pushed out in part because she had challenged the controversial DNA testing technique. On Monday, the city agreed to settle her case for $1 million.
Ms. Stajic, 69, said she felt vindicated. "As a forensic scientist, I am fully aware of the importance of validating each study," she said in an interview. "My concern was if that study was not done, there could be wrongful convictions. And if the wrong people were convicted, that would mean the wrong person would be walking free."
[...] Ms. Stajic's case, even without going to trial, shed light on the inner workings of a city agency that is often assumed to be untouched by political pressure. But the case's bigger legacy may be one bit of information that her attorneys say came out in the lawsuit: They said it proved the city had never performed the study of the DNA technique as it had claimed.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 27 2019, @07:01PM (5 children)
If she was really concerned about the validity of the test settling will just let them bury that fact. If they actually had to have a trial and enter evidence, then we could know the truth.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 27 2019, @08:00PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 27 2019, @09:43PM (2 children)
The problem is, I find it hard to believe that all of this was a one-off. It reads a lot more like a culture of doing sloppy work and sweeping it under the carpet. Their evidence is being treated as scientific in court, but in fact it looks like they're just modern day witch doctors with more expensive props throwing the bones.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 28 2019, @01:39AM
If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit... how quickly we forget. Like Catholic priests molesting young boys, this has gone on, all around the country and the world, since before we were all born, and will likely still be going on long after we're all dead.
So say we all.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 28 2019, @02:57AM
Well yes, pseudoscience has a long history in law enforcement. Lie detectors, bite marks, blood typing, trial by water, trial by fire, burning at the stake. That last one is especially beautiful. If you're innocent, an angel will happen along, and extinguish the flames, right?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 28 2019, @06:46PM
what kind of bitch modded the above post a troll? it's the fucking truth.